Talk:Tippe top

Latest comment: 2 years ago by Stub Mandrel in topic Etymology / History

Untitled edit

I added a picture of a tippe top I happen to own, but a nicer tippe top would be preferable.--Gellender 14:44, 25 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

Untitled edit

I have read that Landau and other were the first to explain the behaviour of this type of top. could someone please add some more information, im looking but i havent yet found any. i vaguely remember (perhaps from one of feynman's lectures/books) an anecdote about landau and another soviet physicist being intrigued by the tippe top and eventually developing new methods with which to analyse it. so i think this article is of higher importance than is currently stated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.25.80.73 (talk) 12:25, 14 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

Untitled edit

The first reference: Bou-Rabee, Nawaf; Jerrold E. Marsden; and Louis A. Romero (2008). "Dissipation-Induced Heteroclinic Orbits in Tippe Tops" is contradictory. A heteroclinic orbit is a trajectory which connects two saddle equilibria. But they speak about only one saddle and a stable equilibrium. John Illado (talk) 13:21, 28 December 2011 (UTC)Reply

Etymology / History edit

What is the origin of the name? Is it eponymous, or was it derived from the term "tippy top"? Reify-tech (talk) 15:32, 9 June 2017 (UTC)Reply

I came across a supposed history of this gadget on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004U3SPF0/). Scroll down to "Product description". An excerpt:

These flip over tops (often known as a The Tippe Top) were originally invented in 1950 by the Danish engineer Werner Ostberg. His inspiration can from a visit to South America where he had seen local people playing with a small, round fruit. When they turned it by the stalk like an old-fashioned spinning top, it would spin for a second and then invert and spin on the stalk. However some credit should be given to Helene Sperl who in 1891 patented a Wendekreisel in Germany.

This sounds plausible, but a better WP:RS is needed. I don't have time to research this now, but am posting this info here in case anybody else wants to pursue it in the meantime. Reify-tech (talk) 15:53, 28 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
Some credit'! What face!To quote the patent

"If one shifts such a gyro, as it is shown by the drawing, and its center of gravity exactly in the lines a-b of the Fig. up to 6 if it is in rotation, it is always informed of a small fluctuation. If the angle that the geometrical axis of the top forms with the axis of rotation has become so large that the center of gravity, which lies in the line from, is far enough away from the axis of rotation, the forces which the displacement of it gain The axis quickly becomes the upper hand, and what appears to be a sudden upward turn of the lower surface occurs. If now the gyro z. B. is painted red on the lower surface and blue on the upper surface, the color change makes the toy surprisingly beautiful when jumping around the top."

Stub Mandrel (talk) 19:33, 29 October 2021 (UTC) [[1]]Reply

Different design parameters edit

Has anybody investigated (theoretically or experimentally) the effects of varying the length of the stem, or the amount of truncation of the spherical body, or slight variations from a spherical to an ellipsoidal (prolate or oblate) body shape? It would be interesting to know the parametric limits at which the tippe top inversion no longer occurs, and the top becomes an ordinary one. Reify-tech (talk) 15:52, 9 June 2017 (UTC)Reply